The Odd Genius And Fish That Helped Create Our Current Electric Infrastructure
The tale of a torpedo and a weirdo
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This morning I harnessed a force of nature so powerful, its very understanding was thought the domain of the gods throughout most of humanity’s existence. Honestly, it was easy. With the flick of a finger, electricity traveled to an LED light illuminating my room.
And that is how we see it: easy. In fact, electricity and our power to control it falls into the background. It’s something we don’t think about; more ordinary than extraordinary.
However, our control of this force of nature is a relatively new development. In the turn of the nineteenth century, electricity baffled the greatest minds on our planet. To them, it was a toy.
In fact, electricity helped Ben Franklin give the best parties in America’s young history. According to the American Physical Society, Franklin hosted a shindig where he barbequed a turkey with electricity, also electrified wine glasses, and shot sparks across a river to the delight of viewers.
Although soon this would all change with the strangest of circumstances.
It involved a fish with a special skill. And if this isn’t weird enough, one of the most eccentric geniuses who ever lived got caught up in the mix too.
While it sounds like the plot to a C-grade buddy movie from hell with the intermingling of the two, electricity went from a party trick to a tool we can’t live without.
But, I’m getting ahead of myself. To begin this story, we need to take a Jacques Cousteau-like trip to the ocean, so we can meet the aquatic half of our buddy flick. We call it the torpedo fish.
A Fish With A Shocking History
The Encyclopedia Britannica describes the torpedo fish as a type of electric ray. They’re bottom feeders with a twist. Their flat bodies allow them to hide under the sand and use a pair of specialized organs to generate a shock which disables their prey.
The torpedo is also found worldwide in warmer climates. Its amazing abilities have also been written about in depth throughout ancient history.
Chau H. Wu in his scholarly article in the Journal American Scientist, explains Plato in his work Meno, referred to Socrates as having the verbal ability to stun — like the torpedo fish — with his deep questions.
Furthermore Aristotle’s student Theophrastus, along with Plutarch mention the torpedo fish’s shock can travel through other media. The former mentions its jolts going through spears, while the latter says they can travel through water.
Unfortunately, my use of the words “shock” and “jolt” misrepresent their initial ideas about the fish. Most thought the numbness was due to a burst of cold created by the torpedo.
Many Greco-Roman healers also used the fish’s special ability to treat illnesses like gout.
Like electricity, the fish remained a curiosity for thousands of years, and little more than that. Well, until it garnered new interest in the late 1700s, after advancements in human-generated electricity.
Mankind Generates Their Own Electricity
In 1706, Francis Hauksbee built an interesting “electrostatic generator,” which created electricity by spinning a glass wheel. At the time, it was semi-magical. With the lights off one could see ghostly sparks when a hand touched the wheel.
In Professor Jim Al-Khalili’s documentary Shock And Awe: The Story of Electricity, he says the device spread across Europe like wildfire, creating a wave of tinkerers who called themselves electricians.
They used the device for tricks, like charging up their hands and shocking guests at parties, even sending a spark from a finger to ignite glasses of cognac. However, a scholar had a better idea.
Pieter van Musschenbroek, a professor at Leiden University in the Netherlands, was trying to store electricity created by his Hauksbee machine. He pictured the force moving like water, and likewise considered storing the electricity in a jar.
So, he poured water into a glass, put a top on it, and ran a conducting wire from the generator into the jar, then sat it on an insulator to keep the charge inside. But nothing happened. After continuous tries, he got impatient.
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Musschenbroek held the jar in his hand, cranked the device, then touched the top of the jar and got a shock so violent it almost knocked him down.
Moreover, this Leyden (Leiden) jar held the charge for hours, sometimes even days. It became a sensation. Soon Leyden jars popped up across the world, leading to all kinds of experimentation with electricity, and coincidentally, many shocks.
Numerous people noticed an odd similarity: the shock from the Leyden jar was a lot like the sensation caused by the torpedo fish.
But they couldn’t be the same. Electricity sparks, while the fish’s power does no such thing.
A Debate Over A Fish’s Power And Electricity’s Nature
Now, you might think this is a trivial argument. After all, who cares about a fish? However, the early scientific community was a buzz, battling back and forth about the fish’s ability.
Electricity was new. So, the debate was effectively trying to hash out how it worked, and the very nature of the force. Into this argument entered a titan of thought, although he didn’t exactly resemble a titan.
He was more of a weirdo of the highest order. While not dangerous, Henry Cavendish was likely the most socially awkward person who ever lived. In fact, he made Alan Turing look normal. According to Bill Bryson in A Short History of Nearly Everything:
“Cavendish is a book in himself. Born into a life of sumptuous privilege…he was the most gifted English scientist of his age, but also the strangest. He suffered, in the words of one of his few biographers, from shyness to a ‘degree bordering on disease.’ Any human contact was for him a source of the deepest discomfort.”
While he was a part of the greatest scientific society in England — when he did attend meetings — no one could speak or look at him without Cavendish bolting from a room in terror.
However, he did communicate by letter, and was fascinated with the torpedo fish debate. So much so, he conducted an experiment.
Cavendish’s Monumental Experiment
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In 1773 Cavendish did something monumental. He created his own torpedo fish to understand the force it was generating by using a Leyden jar in the sand and underwater. Consequently, he mimicked its attack.
The submerged jar created a similar sensation both under water and through the sand, even though many said this was impossible.
According to Wu, Cavendish proved electricity could move through “parallel circuits,” flowing through areas where it meets less resistance. He also figured out the lack of spark was due to less intensity.
Al-Khalili explains the reclose figured out the “subtle distinction between the amount of electricity and its intensity.” In other words, the fish produced the same type of electricity as the Leyden jar, but it just wasn’t as intense (no spark). To break it down:
Leyden jar = high voltage but low charge
Fish = low voltage but high charge
Amount of electricity = what is now called electric charge
Intensity = potential difference of voltage
For some this is incredible, for others only mildly interesting. But what does it mean for all of us?
My Light Doesn’t Turn On Without A Torpedo And A Weirdo
Inevitably, the science learned within the fish debate led to the most incredible discovery of all: electricity wasn’t just a temporary spark. It could turn on, and stay on. Hence, my light switch.
What was once a party trick became something of industrial application. Leyden jars turned into capacitors, which you see on every electrical device you interact with. And many of the theories that keep our world powered came from an odd guy tinkering with a fake fish.
While we may take electricity for granted, it should never be thought of as “easy.” Our simple light switch came with many shocks. Not to mention many daydreams about a flat creature hiding under a blanket of sand.
-Originally posted on Medium 2/5/23